With more than 363,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, Kolby Cooper is a rising star in the country music scene. Despite the growing fame, he remembers his roots.
When Cooper rolls into town on July 11 to headline Spring Ho’s Saturday Night Street Dance, it won’t be his first time here. One of his most memorable career moments came before a performance at Putters & Gutters in Lampasas.
“We actually got in a wreck before we got there in our old bus and totaled it. It was a wild day,” Cooper said. “Never forget it!”
Before he was creating albums or performing on stage, Cooper first had to fall in love with music. Growing up in Blackfoot, a small unincorporated community in East Texas, he was raised on Texas tunes, red dirt, classic country, classic rock and Southern rock.
Cooper said his first memory as a child was sitting in the back of his father’s truck listening to Waylon Jennings. Cooper lists his dad as his number-one reason for falling in love with music.
“Every day, my dad would get home from work and sit out in the driveway, and I would go out there and hang out with him for like an hour in the truck,” he said. “We would listen to whatever CD he had going in the truck. It was always Whiskey Myers, Randy Rogers or Reckless Kelly, Ragweed. Anyone you could think of, my dad was a big fan and in turn made me a big fan.”
Cooper said he learned how to play guitar from a friend when he was 12 years old. Not much later, he wrote his first song, “Love Song,” about a middle school crush. He admits it wasn’t his best work, but it was a start.
Cooper’s first public performance came at a friend’s bonfire in Tennessee Colony. The organizers told him he could play and even set up a tip jar that would guarantee him at least $100. At the time, it felt like a fortune.
“We went up there and probably knew 10 songs, and probably about five of those 10 we knew half,” Cooper said. “So we played half a song, got to the first verse, first chorus, and just stopped. People would kind of sit there and realize what was happening and start clapping like, ‘Whoo.’ ” However, Cooper’s life took a turn when he was a freshman in 2013, and his father died. Although he lost his inspiration, his father’s confidence encouraged him to keep going.
“It was right whenever I started playing shows,” Cooper said of his dad’s death. “I had just gotten to showing what I had, and over the past couple years he had gone from watching me learn how to play to telling me I could sing to doing the whole thing. He was so proud of me.”
Cooper continued to hone his craft in high school, performing at any crawfish boil, barbecue joint or bar that would have him. During his senior year, he started dating Jillian who had been his best friend since elementary school.
Pondering his options after high school, the 6-foot-3--inch, 350-pound guitarist originally planned to star on the gridiron. But after realizing the work college football entailed, he opted for a different path.
“I was like, ‘Oooh, that sounds like a lot of time away from music and my new girlfriend,’ ” Cooper said. “That kind of helped make that decision. I still love football, and it would have been cool to go play somewhere, but I’m grateful that it worked out the way it did.”
After graduating in 2017, Cooper was able to enter the recording studio. He released his Vol. 1 EP in early 2018. At the time, Cooper was in college and eyeing a pathway in nursing school. Not enthusiastic about college, Jillian and his mom, Monica, convinced him to pursue his passion.
“It was something special about them being like, ‘Hey, we think you can do this and should try it if it is something you want to do,’ ” Cooper said. “And here we are eight years later.”
Since Cooper made the leap to full-time music on July 20, 2018, his career has taken off. What started as a risky decision has grown into a rising national platform, multiple Grand Ole Opry appearances and sold-out shows across the country — all while staying true to his East Texas roots.
Despite the success, Cooper said he doesn’t have a “Wow, I made it” moment. Being able to live out his passion and be there for his wife and children Josie, Charlee and Karter is good enough for him.
“Just being able to have this job as your only job and being able to support a family, it is hard for me to say that’s not successful,” Cooper said.
“It is so surreal,” he added. “My dream as a Texas boy was just to play music in Texas. If I was lucky enough to do that, I was happy.”
While Cooper may have bigger performances on tap later this year, the small-town charm that a place like Lampasas brings is hard to beat.
“I feel so at home at those festivals,” Cooper said. “Me and the boys enjoy being in a small town, exploring and just the feeling of being in a small town. It is always a good time.”
